


unmukha

by toujours_nigel



Category: Ramayana - Valmiki
Genre: Canonical Child Marriage, Child Marriage, Gen, Goddesses, Hinduism, Indian Character, Mythology - Freeform, Sisters, anyway there are like three people interested in this, but married twenty and thirty-something couple are in bed after fourteen years apart, no children or underage according to modern standards children are depicted sexually, nobody is depicted sexually, so idk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-06-13 14:20:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15366528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toujours_nigel/pseuds/toujours_nigel
Summary: I got a tumblr prompt for 'Urmila, 5 characters who taught her something'





	unmukha

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AllegoriesInMediasRes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllegoriesInMediasRes/gifts).



Sunayna her mother, patrani of Mithila, lotus among flowers, takes her younger daughter’s little hands in her own painted hands and says, “Today you are four, and that is old enough to look upon the world and see it with true eyes, now that childhood’s mist has passed and learning’s veil is yet to descend”. 

They steal from the palace with only two guards trailing and look at market stalls in the town square, children a little older than her jostling their way to and from school, women drawing fresh-woven cloth with the brightness of crushed flowers.

Home again and her mother asks, “What have you seen, princess,” in the light tone that expects no answer of any weight, the voice she uses to ask court philosophers whether they have solved all the mysteries and mapped all the wonders of the world. 

“People create beauty,” Urmila says, little voice sombre; she will never be one for screaming so her voice breaks and bells in the temple clamour in sympathy. “People help because they are people, and no other reason.”

“We shall hope you never need learn otherwise,” her mother says, and presses petal-soft lips to her brow, leaves her incarnadined.

* * *

 

Sumitra, Dasarath’s wisest wife, sets hands on her shoulders and draws her in, smells the incense rising sweet from her hair and laughs. “I had not looked to have a daughter’s laughter ringing in this palace so soon,” she says. “But come, daughter, and find your own name, second wave of our new Maithili tide. Will you be Kamala for your dancing lotus eyes, or Yojanagandha for the heady perfume that wafts from your skin, or Kokila for that lilting voice that would rouse envy in any songbird’s little heart?”

“Had you a different name, my mother, when you were a girl in the courts of Kashi?”

“I have been Sumitra since my uncle whispered the name in my infant ear,” says the queen, and turns her in a dance, their hands clasped and her painted feet bright against the marble floor. 

When she stills again, Sumitra says, “Will you stay as you are, quick wave crashing on a new shore, foamed with pearls? None shall gainsay you, that you carry your own name. Such are the privileges of younger daughters, younger queens; you need not carry the kingdom on your back.”

“I could,” says Janaka’s daughter, “and remain Urmila.”

* * *

 

Sita sits stone-still, a woman turned by grief and a parent’s word to the likeness of a woman, without the breath of life: her sister whose feet are never still, who can be traced on her journey through the palaces by the ringing of her anklet bells.

Urmila turns the maids away, and the attendants who followed them from their father’s palace, and finally her husband when he comes searching.

At dusk her sister rouses to life. “Bring me the jewels that came to us from Mithila,” Sita says, on her feet and swaying, steadying. “I shall go into the forest Janaki.”

“And I,” Urmila says, places supplicating hands on her sister's arm, thirteen and an infant.

“No,” says Sita, fourteen and age-old. “King Dasaratha is infirm with age, and patrani Kausalya with grief. In whose hands will I leave them and Rani Sumitra, if not yours that our mother turned deft ere you danced in the drenching rains of five monsoons? Mandavi is a child, Shrutakirti younger still.”

“It is as you say,” Urmila answers. “Come and take your name again.”

“Put away the anklets,” Sita says, smiling. “I shall wear silver rope about my ankles and stay silent.”

* * *

 

There are signs by which one may know a goddess from a woman of flesh, however draped in splendour and dazzling to the eye. The feet of a goddess fall not upon the ground but are caught in the airy element they so prefer, or rest upon lotus flowers that bloom at their touch.

Urmila, resplendent princess, well-taught daughter of wise mothers, wakes in the night and thinks sages must be bereft of all fear, or that would be taught first, that a goddess might be known by the awe she inspires, the urge for prostration that climbs blood and liquifies bone, catches sharp-clawed at breath till her voice is a trembling whisper, saying, “Hail, Goddess,” and stopping, searching through blinding light for signs of identity, and thinking still half-mad that gods like kings ought be announced.

“You take fright swifter than your husband,” the goddess tells her. “Yet even the timid doe fights, to protect her fawns, her wounded mate. Will you send aid to your husband, little daughter, give your days so he can spend his nights in sleepless watch?”

“Time fleets itself away, quick-footed as a frightened fawn,” says Urmila. “I would give even of my life.” 

* * *

 

In the city and through the courts of Ayodhya they sing out that she has opened her eyes for the coronation, having closed them longing for it, and Urmila in her thirteen years of life had learnt enough to bestill the voice that at twenty-seven seeks to sing out and say, “not for that and not for him, not for the King of Ayodhya and not even for its queen.”

She awakens for her husband, up into his warrior’s arms lean with years of privation, his hands still callused from years at the bow running over her arms delicate from the care of frightened maids and his mother’s assiduous touch, his smile still brilliant in a face grown ascetic and unfamiliar.

His voice too has harshened with his flesh, but with her head against his heart it beats with its old cadence, saying, “Urmila, O my soul’s own, O most valiant of women.”

She draws her head laughing up, answering, “O my heart’s lord, will you call thus valorous all who only waited?”

“All,” he promises, “and yet you braver than them, to give such years of your life away, to guide my arrow with steady hands and sleepless eye.”


End file.
